Thursday, June 02, 2011

The war in Libya has been a debacle on the ground, for sure. Originally declared to be for the purpose of protecting civilians, it is now working to the detriment of civilians as NATO refuses all offers of cease fire and vows that fighting, bombing and killing will continue until it achieves its real purpose of defeating Ghadaffi. It's original purpose of protecting lives would, of course, be best served by agreeing to a cease fire which has repeatedly been offered by Ghadaffi.

It now is becoming an even bigger debacle politically here at home. Daniel Larison writes scathingly today on that subject, and on the moves in Congress to compel Obama to bring this country’s illegal participation in that war to an end. He speculates that it might not change anything since, what with the war being illegal already, that Obama might simply ignore Congress and continue despite its direction to withdraw. He has a somewhat lower opinion of Obama than I do, because while I agree that Obama has begun the war illegally, I don’t think he would go that far in disregarding the constitution and the will of Congress. I must confess that I’m not altogether certain of that.

I do find the statement from the Pentagon to be hilarious, that Congress taking action to demand an end to our participation would “send an unhelpful message of disunity,” since they were against the intervention before it began. A commenter sent me into out-loud laughter with the comment that “Because members [of Congress] are irked, they find themselves now against what they were for, and the Pentagon discovers that it is for what it was against.” Our government in action.

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About Me

I grew up in the Air Force, and served in diesel-electric submarines during the Cold War. I worked in the steel industry until it sort of died in the 80's, then in landscape management until recently, when health issues demanded retirement.

I believe government should intrude in the lives of its citizens to the minumum possible degree, but I also know that it must be big enough to
"get the job done." To me the job of government includes concepts that are usually thought of as liberal such as stringent regulation of necessary monopolies, regulating all business enough to prevent it from becoming predatory, providing necessary
comfort to citizens who are rendered destitute by calamity outside their reasonable control, and protection of our environment and natural resources.